I am writing from the Institute for Advanced Study where I will spend this week. I am here to sit in on meetings organized by Piet Hut to look at developing possible projects that would build ELSI's networks with international affiliates.

To my good fortune, on the evening of my arrival was a talk given by Freeman Dyson, as part of the After Hours Conversation series organized by Piet. It is not so often, at least in my humble life, that I stumble upon the opportunity to hear someone so world-renowned speak, and in such a cozy venue at that.

As to be expected, the small bar-like space was filled with people. ELSI's Yuka Fujii who has been spending the past couple of months at IAS whispered that normally the crowd is considerably smaller. It speaks of Freeman Dyson's star status.

Having just flown in the evening before into JFK from Tokyo, my mind was propped up by multiple shots of caffeine. I did not even know what the topic of the talk was. Freeman Dyson started by passing out a high-resolution image of Magnetite that had been extracted from tissue of the human brain. This grabbed my attention as I recognized it immediately as the work of one of our ELSI scientists, Atsuko Kobayashi.

In his expert story-telling skills, feeding us just the right amount of information delivered with the right pauses and speed, Freeman told the tale of Joe Kirschvink running an experiment using him as the lab rat to test for magnetic perceptions in human beings. The test involved Joe making Freeman wear some sort of head-gear that emitted a magnetic field. What Joe would do with Freeman outfitted in this head-contraption was to give him a very mild electric shock ten seconds after switching on the magnetic field. Joe also had Freeman hooked up to a polygraph test to detect his reactions.

Because there is something charming in both of Joe and Freeman's obvious innate curiosity, the two of them engaged in this experiment together paints a humorous and heartwarming image. So this is what brilliant scientists do when left on their own!

The second part of the experiment was for Joe to emit the magnetic field but this round with no shocks administered. The test was to see whether Freeman would still be able to show through the polygraph whether he perceived the magnetic field. Apparently, even without the shocks, Freeman's polygraph readings would show the same reactions as when the shocks were administered, pointing to his picking-up of the magnetic field even without the shock association. Maybe in his telling, the experiment has been simplified when in reality it was more complex.

Yes, there is not much known about the role magnetic fields play on the human brain. If I were a scientist asked to review the results, I am not sure how I would judge the adventures of Joe and Freeman. In fact, during his talk, Freeman said as much himself, that in its current form the loose way the experiment was conducted (for one, both of them being in the same room) would not be enough to convince skeptic colleagues. After all, Freeman is an exceptionally astute man - who is to say that he didn't figure out the "poker's tell" in Joe's behavior before/when he flipped on the magnetic field? But that is not in any way to doubt the results, only to wonder of this experiment's conclusiveness. I hope more research gets pursued on how we human beings use magnetic perceptions to navigate and live in our world.

What a treat to be unexpectedly presented with the opportunity to hear Freeman Dyson talk, and how great it was that it involved the work of two scientists from our institute, Atsuko Kobayashi and Joe Kirschvink!

High resolution image of Magnetite crystals extracted from the human brain. Work of Atsuko Kobayashi. Kirschvink explains that these crystals of Magnitite are like perfect little compass needles. When they move inside specialized cells, they can open and close ion channels that allow the nervous system to gain information about the local magnetic field.